We shamefully missed Lauryn Hill’s last Uk trip when she played at London’s Indigo2 in April 2012, her sole UK date in the last five years, but stories of her whipping through tracks from her seminal solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and chart topping Fugees hits as well as covers of artists such as Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder left us promising not to miss it again. So it’s with excited ears that we await her upcoming performance at the mighty Brixton Academy in September, a second date having recently been added after the first sold out in minutes. It’s sad to think that the days of tracks such as Killing Me Softly making the UK number one spot are long gone, but it’s also a testament to just how fresh the Fugees sound was, something heavily down to the injection of soul from Hill’s Caribbean influences and seductive voice, achieving the rare balance of reaching the popular market without sacrificing their integrity or the support of the hip hop heads. Eighteen years on, their second album The Score remains one of Hip Hop’s finest moments.

After The Fugees disbanded in 1997, Hill’s debut solo offering The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill saw her cross over into Soul in delightful style, retaining Hip Hop influences and an at times intimidating swagger while focusing largely on the impact of Love. Proving her worth as a solo artist and showcasing the ability of her voice to effortlessly cross genres, she remains one of the strongest lights in contemporary black music to many despite her relative silence since and controversies such as serving a three month prison sentence for tax evasion as recently as 2013. All part of her fiery pull, she’s had her ups and downs in the limelight but the strength of her voice, artistic integrity and soul is almost impossible to deny, so to see her perform in the flesh is definitely not something to be missed, a date in the latter part of the year that’s already pride of place in the diary. Grab tickets direct from the O2 Academy Brixton website.

The founder of Broken Culture, Max is an MC/DJ/Producer/Writer/Photographer/Designer with a love for d&b, Hip Hop and city life.
Find him sipping a Whisky with close company wherever the music's on point, crate digging till his fingers bleed or creeping through the metropolis with an eye out for his favourite animal; the urban fox.
www.maxjquinn.com

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